John Lewis Gaddis Quote

But when Christopher mentioned that he and Talbott had been trying to package post-Cold War policy in a single phrase, Kennan said they shouldn't. Containment had been a misleading oversimplification; strategy could not be made to fit a bumper sticker. The president laughed when Talbott told him what had happened: that's why Kennan's a great diplomat and scholar but not a politician.

John Lewis Gaddis

But when Christopher mentioned that he and Talbott had been trying to package post-Cold War policy in a single phrase, Kennan said they shouldn't. Containment had been a misleading oversimplification; strategy could not be made to fit a bumper sticker. The president laughed when Talbott told him what had happened: that's why Kennan's a great diplomat and scholar but not a politician.

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About John Lewis Gaddis

John Lewis Gaddis (born April 2, 1941) is an American military historian, political scientist, and writer. He is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. He is best known for his work on the Cold War and grand strategy, and he has been hailed as the "Dean of Cold War Historians" by The New York Times. Gaddis is also the official biographer of the prominent 20th-century American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan. George F. Kennan: An American Life (2011), his biography of Kennan, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.